The young Afghan Mozdeh (25) keeps bursting into tears. “Why are they keeping us here? It was so terrible at home, and now we’re in this hell.”

Four weeks ago, traffickers brought Mozdeh, her brother Nawid (22), and seventy other refugees in a rubber raft to the shore of the Greek island of Lesbos. Their flight route had led them on foot from Tehran to the Turkish border, by bus to Istanbul, and then by boat to Greece. “We paid 2000 Euros to the traffickers. My parents had saved the money for me and my brother.”

Mozdeh’s luggage contained a jumper, a pair of jeans, some cosmetics, and many dreams. “One day, I want to be a model and marry a man I really love – not one who is assigned to me. I want to be free. Is that a crime?”

By “hell”, Mozdeh means the refugee camp Moria on Lesbos. 10 000 refugees have been cramped into an extremely narrow space here in makeshift tents. Moria is the nightmare of a failed European refugee policy. Nowhere else is the politicians’ failure revealed more starkly. “The Greek authorities might bring 30 people per week back to Turkey, but no more than that. At the same time, 300 new refugees arrive”, a guard tells BILD. Hardly anybody applies for asylum in Greece. Their destination is Germany.

This family from Afghanistan wants to go to GermanyFoto: Dominik van Alst

4000 PEOPLE, 30 TOILETS

There is an official camp located in a military area, and a much bigger unofficial camp next to it. Here, 4000 people share 30 toilets and wash themselves using only four water taps. It’s stuffy, hot, stinking, and there’s feces and rubbish everywhere. The wailing of the children can be heard from the tents. In front of the tents, perching on the ground, families from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq are meagerly cooking their meals. There is also the regular food distribution. A refugee has provided BILD with a video that shows hundreds of people queuing for several hours for a bowl of rice wrapped in plastic. Enayat from Afghanistan (19): “We’re fighting for the food every day. It’s a struggle for survival.”

Auch Interessant

On the opposite side of the street, “Doctors Without Borders” have installed a mobile field hospital. Every day, the team treats more than 100 people here. “More and more people are coming. If politics fails to find a solution, this will end in a catastrophe”, warns Dr. Alessandrio Barberio (52). Most of the patients are children. They suffer from respiratory infections and skin and gastrointestinal diseases.

Syria’s children are facing their seventh winter of war. According to UNICEF, approximately six million children require humanitarian help.

At the entrance to the admission tent stands Rehmatullah Khan (33), holding his eight-month-old son Hashim. Hashim’s skin is covered in flaky red spots. He is suffering from scabies. Rehmatullah: “I just want my child to be healthy and for us to lead a peaceful life somewhere in Europe.”

The aid organization “Movement on the Ground” has erected 55 tents at the lower section of the camp. The biggest tent is 50 metres long and 20 metres wide. 120 men from Africa live there. Mohammad (24) speaks broken German. He says that he was deported from Germany. Now he’s trying again. He does not have a passport. “Most people want to go to Germany, after all. It’s cool there.”

At the upper section of the camp, Mozdeh is standing in front of her tent. “I don’t know for how long I’ll have to stay here. But I know that I will make it, and that I will show all women that you can fulfill your dreams.”